JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (WGEM) – Missouri Governor Mike Parson’s office announced he will travel to Texas on Sunday to participate in an event branded as a “security briefing” hosted by Gov. Greg Abbott, that state’s National Guard, Department of Public Safety and its Border Czar.

The governors of Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah – all Republicans – are also planning to participate in the event.

Parson has been critical of the Biden administration and the federal government for a “crisis” at the U.S./Mexico border.

While hundreds of thousands of border encounters are reported each month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports encounters saw a decrease in the first two weeks of January.

“CBP’s total encounters along the southwest border in December were 302,034,” the agency reported. “Consistent with historical trends and enhanced enforcement, the first two weeks of January saw an over 50% decrease in southwest border encounters between ports of entry according to preliminary figures.”

Parson and other Republican officials have largely tied the concern at the southern U.S. border to the rising rates of deaths related to Fentanyl, an extremely powerful and potent opioid.

“Children dying from fentanyl is 100% preventable,” Parson said in his recent State of the State Address. “And while President Biden and the federal government failed to do their jobs by securing our southern border, Missouri will act.”

In 2021, 86.3% of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers were U.S. Citizens, according to the United States Sentencing Commission, which was ten times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense.

Furthermore, over 90% of fentanyl seizures happen at legal crossing points or vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Missouri state Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, said the trip by Republican Governors to the southern border is nothing more than a political stunt which aims to district from a chaotic presidential primary and a tenuous, ineffective Republican majority in the House.

“It’s a show,” Rizzo said. “Just because Donald Trump wants to run on immigration, and the Republican Party wants to run on immigration in the next election, they have to blow it up, because the Supreme Leader said so.”

A Bipartisan Solution

A group of Republican and Democratic U.S. senators has been negotiating a piece of legislation which, according to those familiar with the bill, would end the “catch and release” practice of allowing asylum-seeking migrants to wait in the U.S. for their claim to be processed.

Under the proposal, migrants who try to cross the border illegally would be immediately arrested and would have to wait for their claim to be processed while in detention.

If their claim to asylum is rejected, the migrant would be removed within 15 days.

A new “removal authority program” would be created to conduct initial asylum interviews within 90 days with migrants who come to the U.S. border at official ports of entry. Notably, though, those migrants would not be released into the U.S., but instead, detained under government watch. If that initial claim fails, those migrants would be removed immediately, but if they pass, it would extend their stay by 90 days as the rest of their claim process plays out.

Successful cases would eventually qualify for citizenship.

Former President Donald Trump, and many of his devout followers in Congress, have publicly opposed the bipartisan deal – with many accusing the 2024 Republican front-runner of stalling a solution in order to preserve the crisis as campaign fuel.

“As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders, betrayal of America,” Trump said in a recent rally in Las Vegas. “A lot of the senators are trying to say respectfully, they’re blaming it on me.’ I said, ‘that’s ok. Please blame it on me, please.’ Because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill and I’ll tell you what a bad bill is– I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.”

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, admitted he places a greater priority on denying President Biden a ‘win,’ than addressing the situation at the southern border.

The first-term Missouri Senator, who is running for reelection in November, was asked in a recent Fox News interview if he believes the bipartisan border deal is ‘dead.’

“I hope so,” Hawley responded. “It should be. If it’s not dead yet it should be dead. There is absolutely no reason to agree to policies that would further enable Joe Biden.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, said he opposes the deal because he believes Pres. Biden has authority to take action, rendering legislative action unnecessary.

“My contention is, you don’t need new language for Joe Biden to continue to ignore He’s ignoring existing law,” Schmitt said.

President Biden does not have the authority to unilaterally change U.S. asylum law. Recent restrictions at the U.S. border, made under the Trump administration and continued under the Biden administration for multiple years, were imposed as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those restrictions have since been lifted.

“A bipartisan bill would be good for America and help fix our broken immigration system and allow speedy access for those who deserve to be here, and Congress needs to get it done,” Pres. Biden said on January 27. “It’ll also give me, as president, the emergency authority to shut down the border until it could get back under control. If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.”

The drafted language of the border legislation has not yet been released to the public.

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